Video recording devices are being adopted by law enforcement agencies and other organizations to provide factual visual, audio, and metadata (such as date, time, latitude, longitude, temperature, and other metadata about the video, audio, and situation being captured) evidence of encounters with citizens and situations within view of the video recording device. Early implementations of video recording devices were generally similar to GoPro and other consumer-oriented body-mounted recording device. Such devices include manual on and/or off buttons to start and stop recording, are affixed or in some way attached to a user, and have a limited amount of video, audio, and/or metadata storage capacity. With specific reference to a law enforcement application, the data generally is captured and stored over the course of a shift. At the end of the shift the stored data is uploaded to a centralized video management system.
In some cases recording devices rely upon the user to operate a mechanical slide switch that physically covers the video camera lens when the device is manually switched to the “off” position. To turn the recording device on, a wearer or user must slide the switch to the “on” position. Other recording device examples depend upon the user to press one or more mechanical control buttons exposed on the front of the device to start recording, stop recording, mute audio, or otherwise manually control the operation of the video recording device. Such system control buttons are often small and front-mounted, facing away from the wearer's point of view. As a result, the wearer must look down at the video recording device on their chest to ensure the correct button has been depressed, and/or to see that a status indicator light is illuminated.
Operating mechanical buttons require the user to stop looking at a citizen, situation, or other potential threat in order to operate the video recording device. In the case of a law enforcement officer, looking away from one or more citizens involved in a situation can raise the risk of a situation turning into an incident, or worse yet result in law enforcement officer injury or death. The ideal case, and goal, is to avoid a situation turning into an incident. Therefore, there would preferably be no recording device control action that requires the user to take their eyes off an existing situation to reliably operate the device.
Recording devices, often also referred to as video recording devices, also have mechanical buttons that are dedicated to the basic functions of turning the device on or off. It would be useful to be able to query the status of a video recording device for information such as fault codes, remaining video recording time, and remaining battery life. However, such additional status query capability would require additional buttons, or complicated sequences of button presses, that would be confusing and complicated for a user to operate reliably. The user would like the ability to validate that the video recording device has adequate remaining battery or recording capacity before responding to a situation, without operating a complicated sequence of control button presses, or removing the device from the front of a shirt or other clothing to look at a control screen or connect the unit via USB, WiFi, BlueTooth, Zigbee, or other data connection to another device where status information can be obtained.
Mechanical exposed buttons on a video recording device have great potential to be distracting and/or confusing to a highly stressed user. A user who is pre-occupied with a situation that could rapidly escalate into an incident, or when an incident is already in progress upon arriving on scene, does not then also need the added stress of trying to operate mechanical control buttons. If there are exposed mechanical control buttons, there is the greater risk that the wrong button might be pressed at the wrong time. A video recording may not be started, or the user might inadvertently turn off the video recording or mute the audio recording just when it was needed most during an incident.
Exposed buttons and/or status indicator lights on the front, sides, top, or bottom of a recording device are plainly visible to a citizen facing the user. Therefore it is also possible for a citizen to be tempted to reach out and operate a control button to stop a recording or otherwise interfere with the operation of the device. An average citizen armed with a knife who is located within 21 feet of a police officer (the so-called “21 Foot Rule”) can charge and reach the officer before the officer would have time to react, bring a weapon to bear, and attempt to neutralize the threat. A citizen located within 21 feet of an officer could also charge, reach out, and attempt to press a front-mounted video recording device control button. A situation where there was more than one citizen located within 21 feet of a police officer would magnify this risk. A citizen acting on a temptation to attempt to turn off a video recording device would certainly turn a situation into an incident, which is to be avoided if at all possible. If the situation did devolve into an incident, the user might become involved in a struggle with one or more citizens, and an exposed control button might get accidently pressed through first blows or other bodily contact. This could stop the recording during middle of the incident. A video recording device with no exposed control buttons on the front, sides, top, or bottom of the device would minimize the temptations and risks presented by exposed control buttons. As a result, the wearer of the video recording device needs a way to control the device without having mechanical buttons exposed that a citizen could attempt to operate.
One alternative includes exposed manual control buttons on the back of the video recording device, which are not in view of the citizen. These buttons, however, would be difficult to operate. A user of a video recording device does not want to remove the device to operate controls to start or stop video recording, mute the device, or execute other commands. Exposed control buttons on the back of the video recording device would also be subject to accidental button presses through the device getting pressed by a seat belt or other forces that could accidentally press the device into the wearer's body. Exposed manual control buttons on the back of a video recording device would present great risk of device control commands being accidentally executed.
As a result, a recording device should not have any exposed mechanical control buttons that can be accidentally pressed by the wearer, come into contact with surfaces that accidentally operate a control button, or can be operated by a citizen involved in a situation or incident. The preferred device should reliably capture video, audio, and/or metadata. The preferred video recording device should not stop recording, be muted, or otherwise be inadvertently switched into an operating state when not consciously intended by the device user. Yet a user of a video recording device needs a way to positively control the device and get positive confirmation feedback of command execution without having to look at the video device, or press any exposed buttons.
Another problem with prior devices is that they are generally manually assigned to a user (a police officer, etc.) through a video recording device serial number. The video recording device can also be associated with a person through a manual data entry process and that the device serial number or other ID number is entered into a database (such as a central control assignment database) that logically associates the device to a law enforcement officer or other wearer. However, there is often no validation or verification process or other technology to insure that the person who has physical possession of the video recording device is actually the same person the device is associated with in a central control assignment database. For example, Officer B could pick up and put on a video recording device that had been associated in a device assignment database to Officer A. As a result, video recorded by the device might be attributed to Officer A, when in fact the video recording captured by the recording device was actually captured by Officer B. Or it could be that the actual wearer of the device at the time the video was recorded might never be known with absolute certainty. There is a need for at least a one-factor authentication method that positively associates a video recording device to a specific person, or to another equipment item that is assigned to the specific person.